Re: So who dropped the ball here?

boots goes:

What I find most chilling is not what is in the story itself, but what
is evidenced within this thread -- that there are seemingly reasonable
human beings who want to legislate away choice, who want to make the
remedies they consider best the mandatory remedies. That's not the
first step on a slippery slope, it's jumping into the abyss.

Typical American-style fetishisation of freedom, as if it were an end
in itself. We have the case of a child who was being abused,
regardless of whether the parents saw it as abuse. If a child were
being sexually molested you'd expect doctors to do something about it
if they found out, wouldn't you? What's the difference?

When my youngest was 8 months old there were some terrible symptoms,
loss of consciousness and convulsions being the most striking. We
immediately called medical assistance. The incompetent hacks
diagnosed it as "epilepsy" and left the real problem (extreme
hyperinsulinemia) untreated for years until we stumbled across a
doctor who was competent enough to know what a blood-glucose meter
was. A blood-sugar level of 10 was a pretty definite indication of
the problem.

That's not at all an issue of freedom. It's either a question of the
limits of medical knowledge or its malpractice. But nobody was taking
your freedom away or attempting to.

Now, we made a choice. We chose to call for modern medicine to help
us. It was our choice to make, we made it, we are responsible in that
way. It did not help, modern medicine did not even resolve the
symptoms much less its cause. I remember the helpless feeling, the
feeling *** yes do whatever it takes to save my baby.

What if some bunch of religous maniacs had legislated away any choice
we had in the matter and said that faith-healing was the prescribed
treatment?

Ridiculous argument. That's not even on the table. But on the other
hand, you believe in a hyper-interventionary god who puts his hand out
to catch you falling even when it's only money you need: so why not
faith-healing? What would your objection be?

I realize that atheists are afraid of just this type of
madness, and I suppose it might be possible because the supposedly
"rational" people posting in this thread want to mandate medical
attention in preference to faith-healing. In our particular case no
damage would have been done if faith-healing had been the mandate
because modern medicine turned out to be incompetent anyway. In other
cases it could have meant everything.

In your case there might well have been negative effects if the
treatment followed had not been. Do you know that for sure? It doesn't
follow, you know, that the not-right treatment is necessarily a wrong
treatment.

When people start defining for others what is best for them, mandating
the proper action, removing individual choice from the picture,
forcing for example modern medical attention as the only legal
alternative, that's just wrong.

How would more choice have helped you?

Not because modern medicine is
inherently bad, it isn't, but because people are choosing to think for
others.

I would very much wish for qualified doctors to do my medical thinking
for me than either priests or mountain-men, thanks.

Frankly a world bereft of choice is unworthy of my life energies and
I'd as soon *** on out of it. The family in the article made their
choice, it is their responsibility. They bear the loss.

Erm, no. The child bore the loss. The child had the right to be
protected, by society if need be, if the parents failed. Society
failed.

Choice is
like that, sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong.
Sometimes people live, sometimes people die. But legislating choice
out of the picture is, at least in my opinion, wrong.

So you think parents should be allowed to choose to sexually abuse
their children? Why not?


--
AH
http://grapes2dot0.blogspot.com




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